Your role at a competition can be a major ingredient to your child's performance.  You are an important support system!  Determining how and when you provide support is the challenge.

Every child is different, each having their own needs which change over time.  Their needs at a competition or test day may be affected by the level of competition or test being taken, demands of coaches, amount of free time, accreditation or access to your child, media presence and their own confidence in their ability.

The most important thing to do before hand is to work out a pre-competition routine with your skater.  He or she should be allowed to determine where they want you to be while they dress, practice, stretch, wait to perform, and perform.  This is often best arrived at away from the competitive site by asking, "What do you want from me at the rink?".  Adhering to a routine gives a skater security and structure to period of time that is totally unpredictable.

Typically, an athlete may prefre to be alone, to walk through the program or test but needs to know you are not too far away, just in case they want to talk.  Mulfiple instructions, trying to psych them up or calm them down, sometimes only adds to the problem.

The most important thing is that they feel confident, and that they are at an excitation level they can handle.  You can facilitate this by presenting a calm, confident front and letting them do their thing.  Often, we express how we feel, more in the way we act and behave, than in what we say.  If we are excited,tense, nervous, or anxious prior to a competition our children will pick up on this.  They will feel our anxiety in spite of our constant reassurance.  Overt parental anxiety only adds to the degree of difficulty of the task they have to do.

Above all, ensure that they feel loved and valued no matter how they skate.
 
 

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